Scientists Are Racing to Make Weed As Easy to Drink as Beer

The challenge is to create marijuana beverages that hit at the same time as alcoholic ones.

People who drink alcohol typically learn the hard way how much is too much—usually in their teens or early 20s. As adults, they’re not interested in learning the same hard-knocks lesson about cannabis.

This is the challenge for an industry seeking to win over new or inexperienced users as legalization spreads through North America and around the world. It’s a particularly daunting one for makers of cannabis-infused beverages, which are keen to participate in a category that researcher Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. expects will be worth $600 million in the U.S. by 2022.

That market potential has attracted several big alcohol companies that are seeking to offset declining beer consumption with the next big thing. The best-known partnership is Constellation Brands Inc.’s 38 percent stake in Canopy Growth Corp., the largest cannabis firm by market value, for which it paid about $4 billion. Budweiser brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev NV formed a research partnership with Tilray Inc., with each company investing up to $50 million in the venture, and Molson Coors Brewing Co. has teamed up with Quebec-based Hexo Corp.

Ministry of Natural Resources & Forestry (MNRF) protects Ontario’s biodiversity while promoting economic opportunities in the resource sector. The ministry conducts scientific research and uses its findings to promote sustainability of Ontario’s forests, fish and wildlife resources, to protect the province from forest fires, floods and droughts and to lead the management of Ontario’s Crown lands, water, oil, gas, salt and aggregates resources, including making Crown land available for renewable energy projects.